Consumer participation in acute care settings : an Australian experience

Consumer partnerships have been embraced as an important component of building high quality health care services. While nurses have the greatest contact with clients in hospital, little is known of their views about consumer participation or how they facilitate that participation at the bedside. Using focus group interviews and participant observation methods, this project explored nurses' approaches to working with consumers to support their participation in health care delivery. Findings indicate a sharp contrast between the ideas that nurses expressed and the actions observed in practice. It was clear from the interviews that nurses had adopted the rhetoric surrounding consumer participation, yet observational data revealed nursing practices that excluded active participation by consumers. Factors influencing nurses' facilitation of consumer participation were identified as the division of nursing labour in the setting, limited communication between nurses and patients and environmental constraints.

Cross-cultural differences in consumer decision-making styles

This article compares consumer decision-making styles between Singaporeans and Australians. Utilising Hofstede’s framework, the paper argues that cultural dimensions influence consumer decision making styles. It is essential that managers understand cross-cultural consumer decision-making styles to make strategic decisions or effectively handle members of these nationalities. Marked differences were found between the two populations for: brand consciousness, innovativeness and overchoice confusion. The results suggest that some consumer decision-making styles differ due to consumers’ cultural values. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.

Decomposing Consumer Wealth Effects: Evidence on the Role of Real Estate Assets Following the Wealth Cycle of 1990-2002

During the period of 1990-2002 US households experienced a dramatic wealth cycle, induced by a 369% appreciation in the value of real per capita liquid stock market assets followed by a 55% decline. However, consumer spending in real terms continued to rise throughout this period. Using data from 1990-2005, traditional life-cycle approaches to estimating macroeconomic wealth effects confront two puzzles: (i) econometric evidence of a stable cointegrating relationship among consumption, income, and wealth is weak at best; and (ii) life-cycle models that rely on aggregate measures of wealth cannot explain why consumption did not collapse when the value of stock market assets declined so dramatically. We address both puzzles by decomposing wealth according to the liquidity of household assets. We find that the significant appreciation in the value of real estate assets that occurred after the peak of the wealth cycle helped sustain consumer spending from 2001 to 2005.

Intelligent consumer purchase intention prediction system for green products

In this paper the authors model green behaviour by predicting consumers’ purchase intention using Kohonen’s LVQ technique. It is envisaged that such a model may facilitate better understanding of green consumers’ market segments. The model employs cognitive, affective, and situational attributes of consumers to predict their purchase intention. The model can, potentially, provide a more direct method for companies to gauge consumers’ intention to purchase green products. The results indicate that consumers are more strongly resistant to lower quality than higher prices of green products in comparison to other alternative non-green products.

Consumer loyalty versus propensity to switch between providers in mature IT markets (the case of mobile phone market)

The example of the youth mobile phone market is used for pilot empirical testing of a model of consumers’ decision making, based on common features of consumer behaviour in mature markets of information and high technology products. Firstly, we discuss the key properties of mature high technology markets which affect market behaviour and strategies. These properties include: established customer and provider bases; the elements of both oligopolistic and monopolistic competition; very short product life cycle; considerable product differentiation; and using product quality, versioning and price discrimination as planning and marketing tools. Secondly, a model of consumers’ decision making in such markets is suggested on the assumption that a choice is to be made between the following options: to continue using the existing version of the product, to upgrade it with the current provider or to switch to another provider. Product price, quality characteristics, switching costs and network effects are demonstrated to be the variables affecting consumers’ decisions and therefore, these variables should be considered by competing providers when they choose production and marketing strategies. In conclusion, the results of the empirical study are discussed in the context of their possible application to other information and high technology markets.

Testing the circumplex model of emotions in a consumer setting

There is widespread belief that more positive emotional reactions to consumption situations will lead to positive business outcomes such as increased market share through the combination of increased loyalty, repeat purchase and strengthened reputation. However, most of the psychological work on emotions has not dealt directly with consumption experiences, but rather broader everyday experiences. In this study, psychological models of emotion were tested using magazine subscribers, specifically looking at their emotional responses to the magazine and the overall subscription package. The aim was to determine whether one of the major theories on emotional structure, the circumplex model, is relevant and consistent when applied specifically to a consumption experience. The results are positive, with the model being supported, and they provide insight into the structure and relations of different emotional responses (e.g., satisfaction, delight) consumers might have to a consumption experience.

Consumer behaviour

The third edition of this Australian text continues to convey the essence of consumer behaviour and to connect psychological, socio- cultural and decision making aspects of the discipline. While the book is based on the American edition of Schiffman, it has been heavily adapted to suit the Australian market.

Consumer behaviour : an Asia Pacific approach

Applies behavioural science concepts to the understanding of the activities of individuals in the marketplace. It contains diverse and balanced coverage of consumer behaviour research in theory and application.